Brenda Wangari has always had a passion for baking, which she picked back up last year. “It was a pretty stressful year for me last year so baking was like my stress reliever and it was calming too,” said Wangari. Her friend Marion Emme invited her to participate in a past pop-up event, which led her to start her pop-up bakery called Nzuri, which means “good” in Swahili. “I really enjoyed doing pop-ups and made a lot of connections in the community so I just kept doing it,” said Wangari
Since then, she has been selling pastries at events like the Solidarity Social for Palestine at Common Objects this past Saturday. Nzuri, along with other vendors and bakeries, sold pastries and other merchandise in order to raise money and awareness for families living in Palestine.
Nzuri sold snickerdoodles, caramel almonds, hot cocoa, and dark almond pistachio cookies with proceeds going to the Gaza Mutual Aid Solidarity organization, which uses the fund to help displaced Palestinian families. “I feel like currently in our society it’s important for people to know what’s going on, even if it’s not directly affecting us,” said Wangari.
She followed this up by saying, “As a human being who sees somebody else struggling, especially a whole country, you should do something about it, even though a lot of people are trying not to talk about what’s happening over there, but should be talked about and I feel like something like this event is also a nice way to talk about it but nothing too harsh. It’s just people gathering around talking about what’s happening and making sure people are aware and knowing how they can help which I think is great.”
As of right now, Wangari is working on a website for online pick-up and delivery orders for Nzuri, along with future pop-up events, which she will announce on Nzuri’s Instagram page.
Author
Angelo Harper is a student at Seattle Central College perusing his AA degree for Journalism. Born in Seattle and raised in Shoreline, He wrote for his high school newspaper for two years before graduating and on the side he likes to write rhymes and perform under the stage name “Lil Fax Machine” where he has collaborated with local artists from the Seattle area on several tracks and a few music videos.
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